Mother Closes The Gate of The Garden
by piiyaya
Summary: Death in the eyes of the child.


The tumult of the winds had died down, but the quiet that followed did not bring peace to the heart of the Little Boy. For the darkness of the night was full of evil portent, making him fear that the **Unknown Destroyer** might strike again in his little world.

By force of habit, the Little Boy longed to go to his Mother for consolation and assurance; and he started for her bedroom, for he knew that she had left her bed for days. But it occurred to him that she might not even be able to answer his questions. For since the coming of the rains, she seemed to have lost her former vitality and enthusiasm.

She no longer showed quite the same eagerness, for example, in sharing his discoveries in the **Garden**. Whenever he come to her to babble around a new song he can play, or about anything else that had aroused his interest and curiosity, she would only smile warmly at him, without the usual sparkle in her golden eyes. And when her hands tried to toy with his hair, he would notice that they were pale and cold and trembling.

Once, noticing that his mother had not uttered a single word for a long time, the Little Boy had paused in his chatter and looked up. Then, startled to see her eyes wet, he had asked her the reason for her tears. But she had remained silent, and his insistence had only made her cry all the more.

This had puzzled the Little Boy, to whom tears had meant simply the impossibility of getting what he wanted at the moment. And tears always had a way of drying up quickly. For something more engrossing than the object of his outburst of passion had usually turned up to amuse him. Usually, too, his Mother had appeared on the scene of the catastrophe; wiped away his tears; and gave him a piece of cake, a caress, or a reassuring word.

But the Little Boy found it impossible to understand his Mother's tears. And it troubled him to discover that even she could cry- or, indeed, have occasion for crying. For she had always seemed so unruffled, so capable of meeting everyday problems-her children's as well as her own- with courage and humor.

Thinking about all this, the Little Boy felt lonely and lost. Strangely enough, however, he did not cry. In fact, he could not, although he felt like doing so. He simply sat at the window from which he had often watched the spectacle of the rose, that has the same color as his **Mother'**s hair, with his crossed arms resting on the sill and with his chin cradled in his arms, staring into the darkness outside.

The meandering flow of Little Boy's thought and the oppressive silence of the nightwere suddenly and rudely broken by the lugubrious baying of his dog, echoed and re-echoed by that of the other dogs in the neighborhood. This local superstition told him, meant death.

What was death? The question bothered the Little Boy's thought for the second time- and with new urgency. Up to that time, death had meant to him only the sudden shriveling up of the roses. Would human beings end up that way too?

The Little Boy had no time even to venture an answer to this question. For suddenly, there was a commotion in the house, accompanied by sounds of stifled sobbing. And this atmosphere became tense with excitement.

The Little Boy get up cautiously turned his steps to his Mother's room. But he stopped at the threshold, feeling as though he had suddenly lost his power to move. For the haggard and grief-stricken faces of his Father and his Sisters, who were hovering over his Mother's bed, told him that something terrible happened. And he was seized with fear for his Mother.

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><p>Presently, men came and placed the Little Boy's Mother in a long, cloth-lined box; and they covered the box, so that only her face showed through the little glass window. Flowers were placed beside the box, and lighted tapers were arranged around it-giving the place a somber and religious atmosphere, which was enhanced by the pieces of black crepe draped over all the mirrors in the house.<p>

In his childish ignorance, the Little Boy wondered why these people came now that his Mother was dead. Why, he asked himself again and again, did they not come on the preceding days when, perhaps, they could have helped her in her battle for life? As it was, they simply frustrated his desperate desire to be alone-robbing him of the peace and quiet which he felt he needed.

The next afternoon, the Little Boy saw his Mother carried to another world far beyond the gate of the Garden. It was a desolate and unfriendly world overgrown with tall, wind-swept grasses. And this desolation was enhanced-made complete, in fact-by whitewashed stone structures, surmounted with angels and saints; and by wooden crosses in various stages of decay and disrepair.

Pity and concern for his mother flooded the heart of the Little Boy, as he surveyed this bleak and lonely world in which she was now to make her home. How could she find peace and contentment and happiness in it- his Mother who used to reprimand him for any sign of loneliness? And was this the Heaven promised in the Book that his Father had read to him long ago?

The little boy wanted to seek someone to whom he could voice these bitter thoughts. But just then, a new outburst of weeping rent the evening air. And, wiggling his way through a forest of legs, he saw his Mother's coffin being thrust into a niche.

A yearning to see his Mother's face and to touch her hand once more suddenly took possession of the Little Boy. Without realizing what he was doing, he made for the coffin but he found himself restrained by his Father's hand. And, as on previous occasions when he had not been able to do what he had wanted to do so, **he burst into tears.**

As the Little Boy looked through his tears at the flowers thrown about the grave, he felt as though they had lost their friendliness towards him, as though they were smiling and winking at him mockingly. So he turned his gaze across the desolate country towards the western hills. And as he watched the sun disappear beyond them, he felt that his last golden day was over. What the next day would bring him, he didn't know-nor, at that time, **care**.

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